As a busy mom of three who has an early morning wake-up call, Dylan Dreyer knows how important it is to nourish her body with energizing ingredients that will sustain her throughout her day. In a new interview with EatingWell, the 3rd Hour co-host and NBC News meteorologist opened up about how she cooks for her family of five.
Every parent knows that the secret to getting through the day in one piece is lots and lots of coffee. As she prepares for another morning on-air, Dylan said her husband, Brian Fichera, prepares a pot of coffee in advance to make the early days easier.
“I just wake up and get dressed. My husband preps my coffee the night before so all I have to do is plug in the pot in the morning,” Dylan told Eating Well. Her preferred brew type is Farberware percolator coffee pot with milk and sugar, due to the fact that it makes the “hottest, strongest coffee.” For a light breakfast, she’ll eat Belvita breakfast biscuits: “The cranberry orange is my favorite flavor.”
After busy weekdays doing double duty as a mom and TODAY co-host, Dylan values quick, easy and healthy dinners that will fuel her family. She also prioritizes a balance of delicious and nutritious meals coupled with plenty of treats.
“I don’t want to deprive them of anything, so there’s pretzels, Tostitos, Cheetos and other little fun crunchy snacks — they’re kids!”
For healthy dinners, she likes lean proteins coupled with lots of vegetables. “I’ll buy meatloaf mix, ground chicken or ground turkey. I’ll sauté carrots, onions and zucchini, I’ll add the meat to it, and then I just top it off with a jar of tomato sauce,” she said. “When I need the kids to eat a full hearty meal, I feel like it’s a perfect easy weeknight recipe.”
Dylan is always dreaming up ways to make vegetables more exciting for her little ones to enjoy. Her go-to side dish lately is broccoli. “My kids really like broccoli, and they especially love it roasted,” she said. “I drizzle it with olive oil and season it with mushroom powder, which adds this salty, umami flavor to the broccoli.” She said her husband isn’t a vegetable lover, but he can eat her roasted broccoli “like popcorn.”
As the weather cools down in New York, Dylan makes room on the dinner table for the ultimate comfort food: her famous chicken potpie, which she described as “nice, hearty and filling.”
These days, Dreyer sticks to gluten-free products so that her entire family, including her son Calvin who was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2023, can enjoy it. “It’s something super hearty and healthy because of all the vegetables — very satisfying.”
To ensure that her little ones are consuming enough fruits and vegetables throughout the day, Dylan said she makes immune-boosting orange-mango smoothies, especially if anyone in her family is feeling under the weather.
“I’ll put in some oranges, frozen bananas and some frozen mango to add some sweetness to it,” Dylan tells EatingWell. “And I use unsweetened vanilla almond milk to mix it all together. It tastes like a creamsicle-flavored smoothie, but it’s got two whole oranges in it, so it really has a lot of that vitamin C. (My kids) don’t really even like orange juice, but when I give them this smoothie, they think they’re getting something fancy because it tastes like a milkshake.” (Get the recipe here.)
“For me, eating well is about eating what you love, but making sure you get some good stuff in there, too,” she added.
